On The Ropes: Tapped Out Book 3

by Quinn, Cari

  But Gio understands why. He’s their right-hand man.

  When we got off the phone a few minutes later, Jenna was still gushing about the club and needing to brush up on her moves, and with every passing moment, I felt like more of a jerk. Why had I sucked her into my mess? How could I begrudge Gio for doing that, when I’d just learned how easy it was to pull others down with you into the mud?

  I shoved my phone in my pocket and shut my eyes. I just wanted to sleep. I hadn’t gotten much rest since I saw the results on that stick, and my exhaustion was catching up with me.

  Rolling over, I pressed my cheek into the pillow. Maybe I’d take a quick nap before dinner. Just a few minutes.

  “Carly, wake up. You’re having a bad dream.”

  I shook off the hand on my arm and shot up in bed, gasping. I couldn’t breathe. I looked down at my stomach and could only see blood. My flat stomach, because there was no baby. It was gone. They’d taken it from me.

  Marco smiled, his eyes gleaming with menace. “I’m sorry, gattina. The baby didn’t survive.”

  “Carly.” My sister’s face swam into my line of sight. “You were just dreaming. Everything’s fine.” She brushed my hair away from my face. “You were thrashing and crying out. I didn’t know what you were saying.”

  I did. I knew very well, because the scream was still trapped in my chest. Gio.

  I’d been screaming for him, because they’d taken my baby.

  I locked my arms around my stomach and hunched forward. “I need a few minutes alone,” I whispered. “Please.”

  “Sure. Come on out when you’re ready.” She pressed a kiss to my forehead and left me alone with the demons in my head.

  Gio could never find out about this child. If he did, they would too. I’d be the one shot dead. Collateral damage.

  I’d run away first. Leave town entirely. Just vanish. If I had to, I’d leave everything behind—school, my friends, Fox, my sister—to ensure we’d be okay. I didn’t know how I’d survive without them, but I was going to be a mother, and that had to come first.

  Still riding on the fear from the dream, I grabbed a piece of paper and a pen and scrawled out a quick note. It would be my last resort, but having that piece of paper with me at all times would make me feel secure. I wasn’t trapped in this town with these men who might harm me or my child, even incidentally. I had choices.

  Folding up the paper, I slipped into my purse. I’d do anything to avoid taking that step, but if I had to, I would.

  Swallowing hard, I tightened my arms around my belly. I’d do whatever it took.

  Twenty-Two

  I watched her from the corner of the club, helpless to resist her pull.

  I didn’t want to see her.

  I didn’t want to let her out of my sight.

  She danced as if it was any other night. Tonight, her hair was a long, brown ponytail that swung every time she propped her heel between the bars of the cage. She shimmied down to the floor and popped back up, pretending to scale the back wall of her miniature prison. Ass shaking, breasts bouncing. Smile never faltering once.

  Until I approached her after the second set, and her face turned into a pale mask.

  She didn’t address me, didn’t even look my way. Just walked past me as if I didn’t exist. As if I hadn’t been inside her seven days ago.

  Had she forgotten already? Because I sure as hell hadn’t. I would never forget.

  I waited outside her dressing room, as always. I didn’t know what else to do. There was no way I’d let her walk out alone and take the subway home. Even if Marco and his men saw me with her and decided I’d been lying, I didn’t care.

  Taking care of her was what I did. We’d only had so few weeks together, but I couldn’t stop now. Whether or not she hated me—for good reason—her safety was paramount.

  Unless I was inadvertently putting her in more danger. I still couldn’t quite figure out their end game. Did they want us together or apart? Would it be easier for them to harm her if I got jealous and steered clear? Or did they think I was too stubborn to listen to their directives?

  Times like this, I missed Dante with a fierceness that tempted me to pick up the phone. Strategy was his bread and butter, and he’d been raised with it at the forefront of his mind. He was very much his father’s son, and with his contacts, he’d be able to tell me what lay ahead.

  He might also be the one holding a gun at the end of the road.

  I wanted to trust him. Good goddamn, I needed to trust someone. He’d been like my other half for the first decade and a half of my life, but he was a different man now. Family only held sway when it didn’t interfere with the needs of the organization. I’d heard too many stories of fathers killing sons, and friends leading friends to the slaughter.

  Loyalty to the family was all that mattered. Not the blood one, but the one you’d given an oath to. And Dante wasn’t on my side.

  No one was on my side. No-fucking-one.

  She came out of the dressing room and didn’t so much as skip a beat as she walked past me. I followed her to the street, expecting her to fall into step with me even if she had no intention of speaking to me. As long as I could drive her home safely, I didn’t care. But she turned toward the subway as if I didn’t exist.

  I’d already become a ghost.

  If she wanted to work it that way, fine. As long as she got in my truck, she could ignore me until the end of time. I wasn’t leaving without her.

  I shadowed her for a moment, then grabbed her waist and hauled her over my shoulder, carrying her in a firemen’s hold up the street, dodging people while she cried out and slammed her fists into my back. Their power was always a surprise. She’d been a surprise from the moment I’d laid eyes on her.

  People stared at me, wondering if they were witnessing a crime in progress, but an icy stare from me was enough to have them looking away. A six-foot-three, heavily tattooed and muscled man with murder in his eyes wasn’t the kind of guy anyone wanted to take on this late at night.

  She stopped fighting by the time we reached the parking garage. Stopped making any sort of noise at all.

  Once we reached my truck, I let her slide down my body and searched for a way to apologize. Regardless of the situation, I hated to humiliate her and take her choices away—again.

  Her eyes were puffy and red, and it hit me like a sledgehammer that she must’ve been crying.

  “Fuck, baby, I’m so—”

  Her leg came up so fast that I didn’t have a prayer in hell of avoiding it. She moved like a damn ninja, as fast as her sister ever had in the ring. And drove her knee right into my groin, dropping me where I stood.

  “Don’t you ever, ever, touch me again. Do you understand me? You lay your hands on me once more, and this is going right in your goddamn eyes.” She waved a can in my face, and I wasn’t sure if it was pepper spray or napalm. “And I’ll hope you fucking end up blind.”

  Staring up at her as she glared at me with hatred and fury in her fiery blue eyes, I fell so far that there wasn’t a bottom. No end to the well inside me for her.

  Christ, I loved her. So much that the burn in my chest was ten times the one in my shriveled sac.

  Clutching my aching balls and trying not to writhe on the concrete was a hell of a time to realize the truth. Or to admit it, finally, at least to myself.

  I’d committed the ultimate betrayal toward Emilia, and it wasn’t because I wanted to walk away from this vendetta so close to achieving what I’d been striving toward all along.

  It was this, the love I had for Carly. That was the betrayal.

  That was the thing that could save me.

  She marched over to the passenger door and pulled it open. “I’m only going with you because I’m already here. But if you don’t get your ass off the ground in thirty seconds, I’m hoofing it back to the subway. I have better shit to do than listen to you whine all night.” The door clicked shut after her.

  I sat up and grinned. />
  It took another minute for me to drag my ass to my feet and make it into the driver’s side of the truck. The sensation between my legs was unpleasant, to say the least.

  It was probably a good thing my balls wouldn’t be called into service tonight, because they were far from operational.

  Carly didn’t speak on the way home. As I pulled up to the curb in front of her building, I held out a hand to stop her from exiting immediately. I didn’t touch her. I’d gotten that message loud and clear.

  “Tomorrow night, I’m going to be there to take you home. I won’t lay a finger on you, won’t even say hello. But I need to do that much. Please.” I hadn’t used that word in too many years to count. I never begged, for anything.

  I would beg for the privilege of keeping her safe. It was the one thing I could do for her.

  For myself.

  She appeared to think it over. “Okay.” She gripped the handle, hesitating longer than was strictly necessary. “Next time, bring my dog. Unless you threw it out,” she accused, her eyes going squinty like they always did when she was pissed.

  For a second, I had no clue what she meant. What dog?

  Then I remembered the Dalmatian currently stashed on a chair in the corner of my living room. I’d moved it so I didn’t have to look at it every damn minute of the day and remember how much she loved the stupid thing.

  “Of course I didn’t throw it out,” I muttered, strangely affronted. What kind of heartless bastard did she think I was?

  The kind you’ve already proven you are.

  “Then I want it back. Please.” She bit her lip. “I know it’s technically yours since you played the games, but—”

  “It’s yours, tesoro.” The stark pain that flashed over her face clued me in to what I’d said. Dammit, I would never learn. “I’ll bring it.”

  I needed her to leave before I did something insane. Like beg her to stay.

  “Thanks.” She climbed out and shut the door.

  It was a small victory, though I understood I’d lost the war. Lost too damn much.

  I drove home and let myself in my apartment, my only thought an ice cold shower and falling into bed. I hadn’t had a fight tonight, had only trained for the bout with Fox next week, but I was exhausted. My limbs were like leaden weights, only still functional from sheer will.

  But it only took one step into the apartment for me to realize I wasn’t alone.

  I waited, letting my vision adjust to the darkness. Then I considered where the closest weapon was. My .45 was under the coffee table, but there was a fireplace poker right beside the door. I didn’t have a fireplace. The poker was simply another weapon. They surrounded me, but right now, I’d happily use my own fists.

  Someone had invaded my apartment. My one private sanctum.

  Before I’d taken another step, a man stepped out of the shadows that had made him. Words failed me as my gaze raced over the features that so closely mirrored my own.

  “Giovanni, it’s been a long time.” My father’s voice was as pleasant as a cloudless summer day. “I’ve gathered you haven’t missed me.”

  I grabbed the poker and scanned for other men out of the corner of my eye. I might not come out unscathed, but I’d go down swinging.

  My father chuckled. “Now there’s a hero’s welcome. My boy, you disappoint me.”

  “I’m not your boy.”

  “No, I suppose you aren’t. What is this?” He picked up Carly’s dog and stroked its cheek, sending a wave of disgust through me. He shouldn’t touch anything of hers. It felt like he was tainting her, even from a distance.

  Like he’d tainted me.

  “Oh, I know.” He set down the dog at his side and snapped his fingers. “This must belong to that lovely girl you’ve taken up with. What is her name? Carly. Yes. Carly Ann Anderson, who lives at Apartment 3B in the Hastings Building on Franklin Street right here in Brooklyn.” He smiled at me while the dinner I’d barely eaten that night churned in my gut. “So close by, she is.”

  I clenched the poker, lifting it just enough for him to see the glint from the shaft of moonlight coming through the window. I wanted him to know I was armed. That I would beat him to death for even daring to threaten Carly and not fucking blink. “How did you get in here?”

  I knew the question was pointless. All the steps led to the same place and taking them was like living through Groundhog Day, over and over. But buying myself time while I tried to find out his angle was my only recourse.

  It would be one thing if he was operating alone. I could kill him and trust that would be it. Carly would be okay—at least from this side of the ledger. The Andrettis were another story altogether.

  Except he hadn’t operated alone since…ever. He hadn’t spent years without another’s counsel, as I had. No one to confide in. No one to turn to.

  No one to pull me back from the edge I crept closer to with every passing moment.

  “I’ve been in here before. I’m surprised you didn’t realize.” He gave the dog one more pat and circled behind the couch, linking his hands behind his back and strolling without a care in the world. Because I was the sweet, soft son. I would never hurt him.

  I hoped like hell he still believed that.

  “I’ve seen so much. The little love note she left you, the discarded condoms from your nights together. Glad to see you’re being safe. That didn’t work out well for you before.”

  Around the poker, my fingers tightened. I moved much faster than my father would ever guess. He wouldn’t realize how many hours a day I trained. Even the residual ache between my legs from Carly’s knee wouldn’t slow me down. I was too used to operating with physical pain and moving past it.

  My father, in his thousand dollar suits and with his expensive Scotch and cigar habit, was not. He’d be dead before he realized he’d been struck.

  All I needed was an opening.

  “What is the point to this?” I took a step behind the coffee table. I wanted to be in good position if the opportunity arose. I didn’t know what I’d be unleashing if I brought him down, but eventually, the slights became bigger than the consequences.

  “The point is, my boy, that while you’ve been cozying up to the Andrettis, I’ve had my eye on you. I know your thoughts before you have them.” He pointed at his head, then at me. “Far be it from me to disrupt your plans, but you might stop to think that maybe, just maybe, you have it wrong.”

  He continued strolling, not deeper into the apartment but toward the door. I stared after him. I was tempted to just bash his head in and not wonder about what fuckery he was taunting me with now. What did it matter? If he walked away, I’d have one more reason to worry about Carly.

  One more reason to want to snatch her up and get the hell away from here. Just disappear to a place where no one could find us.

  But the reality was killing him might not make her any safer, even for a moment. Any orders he’d handed down would be executed even upon his death. He had commanders to handle thing in his stead. The organization was like a many-headed hydra. Chopping off one head only meant a new, untested one would spring to life in its place.

  “What do I have wrong? Enlighten me, padre.” I’d tacked on the last bit sarcastically, but he stopped and eyed me for a long, uncomfortable moment.

  “Women have always been your weakness. I understand, as they were mine too once. Your mother diverted me from my path for many years. Even when I righted myself again, her voice was always nagging in my ear. She didn’t like what I did. Merda, she’d known all along. When she met me, I wasn’t selling newspapers. I was breaking legs, and it was work I was good at.”

  “You call that work?” I spat. “Harming people?”

  “Such judgment from one who breaks heads as part of his work. Who gets paid to make people bleed.” He was on the move again.

  This time, I didn’t even track his movements, because he was right. It was for different reasons, and the men I fought were willing participants, but perh
aps it wasn’t that far apart.

  “Your brother, he is honest about what’s in his blood. He doesn’t wear his bleeding heart on his sleeve while he aims a gun with the other. He is a true soldier and happy to do what he is good at. What he was meant for, as you are.”

  “You have no idea what I was meant for.”

  “Perhaps not, because you allowed a woman to confuse the issue. To put thoughts in your head that shouldn’t have been there.”

  “Carly has nothing to do with this.”

  His mouth curved in a mocking smile. “I wasn’t referring to Carly, but Emilia. Though it’s all the same with you, isn’t it? Led around by your cazzo, always.” He walked to the door and I took a step forward, but not fast enough to stop the words already leaving his mouth. “I put an end to my diversion. Perhaps one day you will too. Or it will be done for you.”

  A smile and he was gone.

  And I let him. I let him walk right out the door and keep going, because I was all too afraid I understood what he’d meant beneath the surface.

  He’d ended his diversion. Did that mean he’d simply stopped allowing women to dilute his focus? Or had he had a more particular, sinister meaning?

  Your mother diverted me from my path for many years.

  I sank to the couch and the poker dropped to the carpet beneath my feet.

  She’d died from a strange, lingering illness that had left her bedridden most of the last few months of her life. I’d watched her waste away, and the diagnoses had ranged from neurological to syndromes with fancy names I hadn’t been able to pronounce or understand at that age. All I’d known was my mother was dying before my eyes.

  My hand went to the phone in my pocket without conscious thought. And I dialed the number I’d never expected to use again.

  “Costas.”

  Shutting my eyes, I invoked the one ace-in-the-hole I had left. If it was even that. It might turn out to be the club that finally brought me down. “Do you remember the day before Mamma passed, you told me you would do anything I wished, anything at all?” I asked, voice hollow.